Talk:Electronegativities of the elements (data page)

This page is intended as an authoritative data collection with citation of sources, that may be cited as a central reference by other articles (such as for the chemical elements). Femto 11:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Discrepancy in the Pauling scale
Wikipedia is prompting readers to use the wrong values of electronegativity on the Pauling scale for several elements, i.e. Tc, Lu, W, Ir to Bi, and U to Pu. I believe this is wrong for the following reasons; I will mention only gold here to make the argument simpler but the same argument holds for all the above elements

α) Pauling sets the electronegativity of gold to 2.4, on page 93, of his book "The nature of the chemical bond" 3rd Ed. (1960).

β) Wikipedia cites Allred, J. Inorg. Nucl. Chem., 1961, 17, 215 to justify the 2.54 value, but what is not mentioned in this paper, is that Allred took the arithmetic mean to extract the bond energy while Pauling takes the geometric mean! As a result, Allred's value of 2.54 should not be related to the Pauling scale and the value that readers need to be prompted to is the 2.4 value, not the 2.54.

γ) The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 96th Ed. (2016), as well as the Royal Society of Chemistry prompt to the use of 2.4 for gold on the Pauling scale.

So, overall, for the Pauling scale, I believe that readers should be prompted to follow CRC, not Allred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiphysicsgr (talk • contribs) 13:31, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Meaning of "use" column
The Pauling-values table has a column entitled "use". After reading "Notes" second item ("The suggested values are all taken from WebElements as a consistent set."), I assume that "use" is the WebElements values. There are other columns, listing values from other sources, allowing one to see that some sources do differ slightly and that some sources are not complete (hence advice to use the set that is most complete for self-consistency). However, one of these other sources is...WebElements! And sometimes the "WEL" value is "same" as "use". Why is "use" a separate column if it's the same value as "WEL", and why does "WEL" not have actual values? I think this table would be clearer if the "use" column were nuked and values merged into the "WEL" column. Tht way, the data values are assigned to their actual source. Other columns that agree could still say "same" (or could have the actual numbers too?). Then the second "Notes" is clearer too: because the values can vary depending on how one interprets things, use any one column for self-consistency, and the WEL column is the most complete so it's probably the best choice. DMacks (talk) 18:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal
There is a List of Allen electronegativity page that seems like it should be part of the Electronegativities of the elements (data page), or else these two pages should be renamed for a consistent page title/disambig scheme. I tagged that other page for merger into the page here, since that page also has other types of electronegativity values listed (albeit with less explanation and completeness than the page here). Should we have one unified table here, i.e., just add a column for the Allen values to the existing table, or have separate sections for each type (seems like that was the original intent here, given that the table is in a section entitled "Electronegativity (Pauling scale)")? DMacks (talk) 18:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Best way to put in a new reference?
The electronegativity of astatine is actually below 2.2 (Pauling wasn't quite correct), according to: What's the best way to put this in as a new reference? Thanks! Allens (talk &#124; contribs) 13:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Lawrencium
The periodic table image gives it a value of 1.3, but it is not listed in the data lists below. I asssume it is likely theoretical, like all of the strangely consistent values of 1.3 past Cm. Double sharp (talk) 15:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Mcardlep (talk) 09:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Lr's EN is 1.291. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 20:19, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Allen Electronegativities
The values for three elements have been corrected old values in parenthesis: Se 2.424 (2.434), Ne 4.787 (4.789), Pd 1.58 (1.59) The references to three papers by Allen and Allen et al. which are the primary sources for the data in the Allen table have been added.Mcardlep (talk) 09:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Discrepancy between Americium values in periodic table and table beneath
Periodic table indicates an electronegativity of 1.13 for Am, whereas the table beneath indicates an electronegativity of 1.3. My suspicion is that one of the values is the result of a manual copying error, but I am not sure which value is 'correct.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdanese (talk • contribs) 13:55, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Table value mismatch with "use" value for radon
The table shows a value of 2.2 for radon on the Pauling scale, but the table below says to use 2.2 and has no values from any source for radon's electronegativity. Lucent (talk) 16:34, 23 September 2021 (UTC)